The damage to electronic devices due to the occurrence of electrostatic forces is well known. These forces accumulate on a worker handling such devices without any awareness that the charges are accumulating. Constant effort is necessary to guard against such charges and monitoring devices such as wrist strap and mat checkers are becoming familiar in the factory environment.
In spite of precautions and frequent testing, damage still occurs. Frequently, just packaging devices for shipment or the handling of devices during shipment causes electrostatic charge to accumulate. Frequently, devices tested prior to shipment arrive defective requiring further testing upon arrival or risk of damage to other circuit components because of the use of defective devices. Either option is costly. The presence of a magnetic field during shipment similarly causes damage to sensitive electronic equipment.